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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A story I heard last night from a friend about one of the frats on my undergrad campus:

They had an open house, inviting interested students to come by and find out more about the frat. They all sat around the living room, talking about things and generally getting to know one another. The current members were excited to see how many guys had turned out for just an information session.

One of the current members said something along the lines of "I'm going to rape you so hard in [video game]."

A freshman, his first time meeting these people, said to the current member, "Apologize."

At first, the current member wouldn't. But the freshman wouldn't let it go. And then the entire room of guys wouldn't let it go. They wouldn't let him blow off his comment. The member eventually apologized to the room full of frat members and potential members.

This freshman, one person, held others accountable for their language and atmosphere in a setting that most people wouldn't feel comfortable doing so. My friend was very impressed, since he had prejudged the guy based on his appearance. This one incident probably changed the tone of the house for awhile... I doubt people are going to make rape jokes and comments quite as casually as they did before.

I just wanted to share this story about one person making a small, but maybe one day large, dent in our rape culture.